Wanderlust: ABC Trek: Day 7 - Back to Chomorong

I woke with pain in my right arm and right leg - thanks to the fall I had suffered on way to ABC. I didn't pay much attention to it as I wrongly attributed the pain to the long hike of the previous day. The route back was just retracing the one onward - to Bamboo (tea halt), then to Sinuwa (lunch halt) and then Chomorong for the night (even same lodge as before)

We again started at 7:30 am and the hike to Bamboo was pretty easy, so we all made it in good time except for CD who was very weak due to her inability to eat. She reached Bamboo along with one porter and decided on taking some rest. Rest of us proceeded towards Sinuwa - the trail was going to be ups and downs till Sinuwa and last one hour to Chomorong was the sole long steep climb expected today.

IL was giving company to PC and CD was accompanied by a porter. I was walking at my own pace and enjoying the beautiful flora all around me. A fellow hiker offered to take my picture and soon we started chatting. We kept each other company till upper Sinuwa where he stopped for lunch and I continued to lower Sinuwa. I was there by 11:30 am and ordered myself some heavy lunch as I knew that it was only one more hour of hike from here to Chomorong and that the rest of the gang wouldn't get here before 1 pm.

As I was enjoying my lunch, I met this young lady who was backpacking alone - it was her first time hiking in Nepal and I was honestly impressed. She had lots of questions about the hike and places to stay en route to ABC and I was happy to oblige with all the information I had. By 12:30 pm I saw IL walk in alone, PC was just 10-15 min behind her and CD reached around 1:30 pm.

Since the remaining hike wasn't long, we all hung around chatting (and discovering the story behind IL being yelled at by K at MBC) This is where we decided the names given to everyone in the blog :) By 2:30 pm, we resumed the hike - going down to river was easy but last part was a steep hike of about 40 minutes where I realized that something was seriously wrong with my right leg.

As I reached earlier than others, I had the luxury of shower to myself and I took a long hot one and discovered that my right arm had serious swelling. Now the seriousness of the fall had started to dawn on me. Since there was obviously no fracture and because it was still fairly cold in evenings, I decided against the ice pack and popped in some NSAID. Some time later IL walked in with a black forest pastry from the bakery near by - place where I had stopped by to check if their menu was any good for us to have dinner. The food at the lodge we had chosen to stay wasn't good last time and I was in mood for some good dinner today.

All of us met in the dining hall, had some tea and pastry and decided on having dinner at the bakery. CD, however, wanted to rest so we promised to bring her something appetizing and proceeded for dinner. I can honestly say that it was best dinner on the trail - I celebrated the hike with a beer, IL with a pizza and PC with a black forest pastry. The pizza was served on the oven plate to keep it hot, was thin crust and super tasty. And then I decided to splurge even more and ordered a warm apple pie as well :)

Thus sated we started back for the lodge and realized it was quite a climb especially now that we were relaxed after a big dinner. I honestly don't remember much thereafter except taking one more NSAID and crashing on my bed!